My parents had a house one time that had a wisteria covered wooden arbor
covering their patio. After letting the wisteria grow for two years my
father had the wooden arbor replaced by steel I-beams and steel posts that
were painted black with a green wash. That worked just fine and looked
great.
zem
West TN
zone 7

I was looking at the White Flower Farm site where they tell you never to
remove the stake. I'm sure when trained right it would stand up under
normal
conditions, but what happens in weather?
I've seen a really big wisteria, in fact they claim it is the biggest in
the
world, in Sierra Madre. Here's a link:http://www.sierramadrenews.net/wistaria.htm
This vine did collapse a house. They let the public in to see it in bloom
once a year. It's pretty impressive to walk underneath and it smells
wonderful.
Anyway what have you got to lose, plant your wisteria, train it up the
tree
and see what happens, even if the tree trunk falls over chances are the
vine
will make it and then you can decide whether to build an arbor underneath
it. You'll be doing some pruning every year though!

Well, since wisteria can be trained to tree form using a stake, I was sort
of thinking it might be trainable to a tree. The only question would be
the
diameter of the trunk and or the height of the tree/stake/pipe used to
train
the wisteria. Wisteria trunks can get enormously thick. It thickens,
like
does a tree, every year of growth. But not being sure whether the
diameter
and height of the support would mean that the vine could eventually stand
on
its own, I thought I'd check with others to see if they had any previous
experience in this arena.

I'm not sure of the life span of a snag in zone 5. Anyone know or have
experience here?

We had a wisteria when I was a kid (really, very, very young) and I loved
it
despite the bees. (It wasn't the "Amethyst Blue" of course.)

Well...I don't have a wisteria, but I'm thinking that it won't stand up on
its own. Here's a link to White flower farm where they talk about a
"standard" wisteria:http://www.whiteflowerfarm.com/growing-wisteria-standards.html
But how long will it take for a 20' tall dead tree to decompose, anyway?
In
my area it could be there for decades. I guess it might blow over,
especially if you've got a lot of weight on it in wisteria form.

I've just found a wisteria I'd like to spend some of my Christmas money
on.
Here's the thing; I don't have a really strong support for it to climb
and
the chance of getting one made before spring is unlikely with an unheated
garage.

I do have 3 snags on the front corner of the lot where our delightful
utility company chopped on those elms until they finally died. Since the
Wisteria doesn't mind pruning (must have it or it will take over!) and
cutting down the snags will take away possible homes for wildlife (even
though they don't look very attractive) could I top off one of the snags
to
20' and plant the wisteria next to it for it to climb on? Then when the
snag does decompose, will the wisteria, having wound its way around the
trunk for those years, be able to stand on its own?

Please let me know what you all think. I've got trees to replace the
other
two that are low growing under-story trees and the utility will have no
excuse to touch them!

Blessings,
Bonnie (SW OH - zone 5)

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